IDW Publishing will unleash The Horror of Godzilla this summer, a new series set in 1954 Japan that revisits humanity’s first catastrophic encounter with the King of the Monsters.
The less spectacle, more dread monster story comes from co-writers Ethan S. Parker and Griffin Sheridan, who have worked on Marvel Zombies: Red Band and Godzilla: Escape the Deadzone, along with Tristan Jones, the acclaimed artist of Alien: Defiance and other horror titles. They’re diving deep into the terror behind Godzilla’s initial onslaught and the consequences of exposure to the creature’s mysterious “Kai-Sei” energy.
“Godzilla’s been such a huge part of my life as far back as I can remember, and as someone that had Godzilla 1985 on near permanent loan from our local video store, and hounding my local bootlegger every day on the walk home from high school for the original Japanese cut, I’m genuinely hard-pressed to think of anything I’ve been this excited about in my career,” Jones said. “As a storyteller that’s become something of a fixture in the horror genre, it’s a genuine honor and a thrill to work with Griffin and Ethan (and our incredible editor Jake) on a Godzilla story that leans so hard into my favorite visuals and even harder into things I always wished the films would. It’s a huge departure from what I’ve been known for so far and everyone’s given me incredible space to both try new things, and bring visuals to comics I’d never had a proper chance to before.”
If the tonal pitch sounds familiar, that’s likely intentional. The book is being positioned for fans of Godzilla Minus One, Shin Godzilla and the original Godzilla. In particular, Godzilla Minus One stripped things back to human-scale devastation and emotional fallout, feeling, at times, more like an intimate disaster drama than a traditional blockbuster. That same “boots on the ground” intensity appears to be the guiding philosophy here.
“It’s a terrifying look at the Kai-Sei era’s first Godzilla attack,” said Editor Jake Williams. “It grabs the reader and places them on the ground in the middle of the most petrifying night in human history… the arrival of Godzilla. Through the power of Tristan Jones’ visceral art style, this is the first Godzilla comic we’ve released that goes 100% in on horror. It very well might become the best Godzilla comic ever made… it’s certainly the scariest.”
The first issue arrives in July.